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Yesterday I went up to la Feclaz in the Bauges mountain range in the French Savoie above Chambery. I've not been here to ski in the "summer" before. Again we had 30C+ temperatures in the valley but the plateau at around 1100 meters was 26C, almost chilly with a little breeze from the North. I spoke with the manager who told me about the circuits, a green flat dumbell around the shooting range, 2 blues, a red and a black. The black I know from winter, it is a steep descent finishing in a hairpin but there is an escape route down a drive and passed a chalet. Here's a bit of film to give you an idea. According to Da Strava 22.5km covered and around 550meters of climbing... and descent !

There are two blue loops. The largest one ends with a long downhill and either a left or right hander. The right hander takes you back to the stadium and you can take it at a good speed. The left hander leads to the red and black. The manager told me that the red was not hard but to bleed some speed on a small flat in the middle of the downhill. He was not wrong as the first time down I had a bit of a panic that I wouldn't make it round the tightening left hand bend and indeed I missed the fork to the red and ended up coming to a halt with a "snowplough" just before the black. The smaller blue joins the descent about half way down and is a good starting loop although there is still quite a bit of hill. The red has more climbing but apart from the entrance it rejoins the larger blue without a difficult corner, so to some extent is easier. Unlike the randomness of cyclepaths and the road rollerski courses are well thought out and descents end in climbs so are generally safe to tackle without trying to brake and the run-offs are fairly benign although I wouldn't want to test a crash at speed.

Entrance is 4.5 euros for adults but it makes an interesting change as you have rolling terrain to ski on with some nice curves to work on technique. After you get used to the course you can whizz around without having to worry about 1) cars, 2) aggressive cyclists and dogs coming up behind 3) where the downhill is going. The circuits are 4.5km but through shaded woods it doesn't get boring to spin around for a couple of hours. Annecy Dragons ski club were training at the same time I was there but the pistes are wide with plenty of room to pass (for them).

I filmed the French national championships last autumn on the same circuit where you can see the black, the pros make it look easy